


time enough to choose

by glorious_spoon



Series: Tumblr/Twitter Prompt Fic [49]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:13:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22618429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/pseuds/glorious_spoon
Summary: Edwin Jarvis accidentally travels to the future, and meets his namesake.
Relationships: Edwin Jarvis & Tony Stark
Series: Tumblr/Twitter Prompt Fic [49]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1313993
Comments: 19
Kudos: 224





	time enough to choose

**Author's Note:**

> For an anon prompt on tumblr: 
> 
> _The original Jarvis meeting AI!Jarvis? Grown up Tony, too I suppose. Which makes it a time travel au?_

“Uh, so, I don’t actually know how to explain all this,” Mr. Stark says– _Tony_ Stark, who he last saw three days ago as an energetic toddler, now all grown up. Not just grown, but comfortably into middle age; he must be well into his forties at least. Younger than Howard was the last time Edwin saw him, but not by much.

He _looks_ younger. There’s a bright irrepressible energy to him that reminds Edwin of a Howard Stark he hasn’t seen in twenty years or more. Or, he supposes, fifty years or more at this point. He hasn’t asked, but between young Mr. Stark’s age and the fact that he hasn’t been introduced to an elderly Howard Stark, he can only assume that the worst has happened. _The worst_ , he thinks, when it’s more likely simply old age. Howard Stark was born in 1915. He’d be a nonagenarian by now at least.

He wonders if Ana is still alive in this day and age. He doesn’t ask.

“I’m sure there are many aspects to this that will be difficult to explain,” he offers as young Mr. Stark presses his thumb to what looks like a flat sheet of black plastic beside the door. Lights flicker over the surface, and the door unlocks in a sudden rush of cool antiseptic-smelling air that washes the fresh city stink out of his nostrils. It occurs to him as he steps into the wide gleaming room beyond that this is probably not the sanctioned method for handling an unanticipated time-traveler in SHIELD headquarters; it also occurs to him that right now he really doesn’t give a tinker’s damn.

Mr. Stark laughs; there's a strangled quality of barely-repressed hysteria to it. “You have _no_ idea,” he says, and then, “Jesus, I can’t even imagine, this has got to be like a nightmare for you, how’s Mrs. Jarvis? Or I mean–” he waves a hand before Edwin can even properly flinch, “sorry, sorry, I shouldn’t, I just–are you hungry? I could order a pizza. Jarvis–”

At this, he breaks off again, wincing. Edwin blinks at him, nonplussed. “Mr. Stark?”

“Actually,” interjects an urbane voice that seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, “I believe Mr. Stark meant to address me.”

Mr. Stark jams his hands into the pockets of his suit, looking like a little boy who’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Graying hair, laugh lines and all. “Yeah, uh. About that.”

“Sir, I will be happy to remain off-line until–”

“No, don’t,” Stark interrupts the voice, scrubs a hand over his face when Edwin stares at him, attempts a smile. “Sorry. Mr. Jarvis. I didn’t exactly know how to–it’s just, it’s kind of a long story.”

“Sir,” the disembodied voice interjects. “If I may?”

“Yeah,” Mr. Stark says into his hand. He sounds, of all things, embarrassed. Edwin feels as though he’s stepped into a foreign country where he doesn’t speak a word of the language and hasn’t been briefed on the local customs–which is, he supposes, a reasonable analogy for his current situation–but this man is the little boy he reads adventure stories to at bedtime, who sits in the kitchen and chatters Ana’s ear off about robots, who looks so heartbreakingly like his father when he was young that Edwin can’t help but reach out to him. To settle a hand, carefully, on his shoulder.

“Is everything alright?” he asks.

“Great,” Mr. Stark mutters, then lifts his head with a smile that looks sincere, if fragile. “Mr. Jarvis, I’d like you to meet JARVIS. Proprietary artificial intelligence software. He’s my butler.”

“Handler might be a better term,” adds the voice, very dryly. The tenor of it sounds nothing at all like Edwin’s own, but he thinks, unnervingly, that he can recognize his own exasperated tones when managing the elder Mr. Stark at his most difficult.

“You’re named after me.”

“Mr. Stark named me,” the voice says, still in those dry tones. “It’s my understanding that he chose a name that–well. He wanted to name me after someone who’d been a wholly positive influence on his life.”

Edwin looks at Mr. Stark, who gives him an awkward smile. “In my defense, I didn’t actually think I’d ever be introducing the two of you. But yeah. I mean, of course. Who else?”

“Ah.” And then–addressing thin air, as he’s not actually certain of the etiquette of meeting one’s robotic namesake, especially when no actual robot seems to be making an appearance, he adds, “In that case, JARVIS, it’s an honor to meet you.”


End file.
